What this programme is about
A PhD Business Administration is for researchers who want to explain how organisations make decisions, compete, change and perform, rather than simply learn another management framework.
Your topic may sit in strategy, entrepreneurship, operations, leadership, marketing, innovation or organisational behaviour.
The early stages usually involve doctoral seminars, theory and research methods before the project narrows into a specific question.
Good business research often means getting close to complicated organisations without reducing them to convenient stories.
Depending on the question, you may use interviews, surveys, experiments, archival data or large organisational datasets. The method should follow the question, not the other way around.
Supervisor expertise and access to organisations or data can matter more than the broad programme title. For a different level of study, see the published BSc Business Administration profile.
Inside the curriculum
Skills you'll build
Where this can take you
What studying this programme is like
Strategy research may examine competition, resources, innovation or how firms respond to uncertainty.
Organisational research can explore leadership, culture, teams, identity or workplace behaviour.
Entrepreneurship topics may investigate new ventures, ecosystems, financing or entrepreneurial decision-making.
Quantitative doctoral work can involve econometrics, experiments or large-scale datasets, while qualitative work may use interviews, cases or ethnography.
Doctoral seminars help you connect your project with established theory rather than treating one organisation as an isolated case.
The thesis must ultimately make an original, well-supported contribution to management or business knowledge.
Is this likely to suit you?
Good fit if you...
- You want an academic or research-focused business career.
- You enjoy theory as well as real organisational problems.
- You can commit to long-term independent research.
- You have a developing research question.
- You are comfortable with rigorous research methods.
Think twice if you...
- You mainly want a faster route into management practice.
- You dislike academic reading and writing.
- You want a taught programme with predictable weekly content.
- You are not interested in producing original research.